I had always felt a warm and almost filial affection for Lady Ellinor,
independently of her relationship to Fanny, and of the gratitude with
which her kindness inspired me; for there is an affection very peculiar
in its nature, and very high in its degree, which results from the
blending of two sentiments not often allied,--namely, pity and
admiration. It was impossible not to admire the rare gifts and great
qualities of Lady Ellinor, and not to feel pity for the cares,
anxieties, and sorrows which tormented one who, with all the
sensitiveness of woman, went forth into the rough world of man.
My father's confession had somewhat impaired my esteem for Lady Ellinor,
and had left on my mind the uneasy impression that she had trifled with
his deep and Roland's impetuous heart. The conversation that had just
passed, allowed me to judge her with more justice, allowed me to see
that she had really shared the affection she had inspired in the
student, but that ambition had been stronger than love,--an ambition, it
might be, irregular, and not strictly feminine, but still of no vulgar
nor sordid kind. I gathered, too, from her hints and allusions her true
excuse for Roland's misconception of her apparent interest in himself;
she had but seen, in the wild energies of the elder brother, some agency
by which to arouse the serener faculties of the younger. She had but
sought, in the strange comet that flashed before her, to fix a lever
that might move the star. Nor could I withhold my reverence from the
woman who, not being married precisely from love, had no sooner linked
her nature to one worthy of it, than her whole life became as fondly
devoted to her husband as if he had been the object of her first romance
and her earliest affections. If even her child was so secondary to her
husband; if the fate of that child was but regarded by her as one to be
rendered subservient to the grand destinies of Trevanion,--still it was
impossible to recognize the error of that conjugal devotion without
admiring the wife, though one might condemn the mother. Turning from
these meditations, I felt a lover's thrill of selfish joy, amidst all
the mournful sorrow comprised in the thought that I should see Fanny no
more. Was it true, as Lady Ellinor implied, though delicately, that
Fanny still cherished a remembrance of me which a brief interview, a
last farewell, might reawaken too dangerously for her peace? Well, that
was a thought that it became me not to indulge.
What could Lady Ellinor have heard of Roland and his son? Was it
possible that the lost lived still? Asking myself these questions, I
arrived at our lodgings, and saw the Captain himself before me, busied
with the inspection of sundry specimens of the rude necessaries an
Australian adventurer requires. There stood the old soldier, by the
window, examining narrowly into the temper of hand-saw and tenon-saw,
broad-axe and drawing-knife; and as I came up to him, he looked at me
from under his black brows with gruff compassion, and said peevishly,--
"Fine weapons these for the son of a gentleman! One bit of steel in the
shape of a sword were worth them all."
"Any weapon that conquers fate is noble in the hands of a brave man,
uncle."
"The boy has an answer for everything," quoth the Captain, smiling, as
he took out his purse and paid the shopman.
When we were alone, I said to him: "Uncle, you must go and see Lady
Ellinor; she desires me to tell you so."
"Pshaw!"
"You will not?"
"No!"
"Uncle, I think that she has something to say to you with regard to--to
--pardon me!--to my cousin."
"To Blanche?"
"No, no; the cousin I never saw."
Roland turned pale, and sinking down on a chair, faltered out--"To him,
--to my son?"
"Yes; but I do not think it is news that will afflict you. Uncle, are
you sure that my cousin is dead?"
"What!--how dare you!--who doubts it? Dead,--dead to me forever! Boy,
would you have him live to dishonor these gray hairs?"
"Sir, sir, forgive me,--uncle, forgive me. But pray go to see Lady
Ellinor; for whatever she has to say, I repeat that I am sure it will be
nothing to wound you."
"Nothing to wound me, yet relate to him!"
It is impossible to convey to the reader the despair that was in those
words.
"Perhaps," said I, after a long pause and in a low voice, for I was awe-
stricken, "perhaps--if he be dead--he may have repented of all offence
to you before he died."
"Repented--ha, ha!"
"Or if he be not dead--"
"Hush, boy, hush!"
"While there is life, there is hope of repentance."
"Look you, nephew," said the Captain, rising, and folding his arms
resolutely on his breast,--"look you, I desired that that name might
never be breathed. I have not cursed my son yet; could he come to life
--the curse might fall! You do not know what torture your words have
given me just when I had opened my heart to another son, and found that
son in you. With respect to the lost, I have now but one prayer, and
you know it,--the heart-broken prayer that his name never more may come
to my ears!"
As he closed these words, to which I ventured no reply, the Captain took
long, disordered strides across the room; and suddenly, as if the space
imprisoned, or the air stifled him, he seized his hat and hastened into
the streets. Recovering my surprise and dismay, I ran after him; but he
commanded me to leave him to his own thoughts, in a voice so stern, yet
so sad, that I had no choice but to obey. I knew, by my own experience,
how necessary is solitude in the moments when grief is strongest and
thought most troubled.